European Journal of Communication 28

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European Journal of Communication 28(2)
A particularly valuable feature of this book is the inclusion of testimonials written by

‘witnesses from the past’ – activists, politicians and policy makers who were themselves
involved in the two events. These include Alain Modoux, one of the Assistant Director-
Generals of UNESCO, Mustapha Masmoudi, former Minister of Information of Tunisia
at the time of the NWICO and member of the McBride Commission, and Hıfzı Topuz,
president of the Union of Journalists in Istanbul and member of the Turkish National
Commission for UNESCO. Contributors also include several academics that played a
key role in the events, such as Divina Frau-Meigs, who served as the vice-president of
the International Association for Media and Communication Research during the WSIS,
and Kaarle Nordenstreng, president of the International Organization of Journalists at the
time of the NWICO.
From NWICO to WSIS will provide a valuable resource for anyone interested in the
historical background of contemporary controversies surrounding information and com-
munication technologies and their global regulation, including not only academics but
also policy makers. Given its global remit the collection also makes a contribution to
ongoing efforts to ‘de-westernize’ media and communications research.
Stig Hjarvard and Mia Lövheim (eds), Mediatization and Religion: Nordic Perspectives,
Nordicom: Göteborg, 2012; 210 pp.: SEK 240/€280.00
Stig Hjarvard and Mia Lövheim’s edited collection brings together contributions emerg-
ing from the Nordic Research Network on the Mediatization of Religion and Culture
(2006–2010). As the title suggests, the volume has a regional focus and seeks to elucidate
contemporary developments in the area of mediatized religion in Nordic countries, while
also engaging with wider international debates on the topic. Apart from a common
regional focus, several chapters also share a theoretical framework, centred on the con-
cept of ‘mediatization’ as a novel way of understanding the relationship between the
media and religion.
The book is divided into four thematic sections. The first section deals with the
media–religion nexus in the context of the changing role of the national Lutheran Church.
Stig Hjarvard’s contribution offers a useful typology of three dominant forms of media-
tized religion appearing in this context: (1) religious media, (2) journalism on religion
and (3) banal religion. Due to the diminishing role of organized religion, he argues, the
latter two forms – both driven primarily by media institutions rather than traditional
religious institutions – play a key role in shaping public religion. The remaining three
chapters in this section each bring an empirical case study elucidating different types of
mediatized religion in relation to the Lutheran Church. Peter Fischer-Nielsen’s chapter
offers a case study of Internet use by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark;
Henrik Reintoft Christensen examines recent debates on homosexuality and the National
Church in the Scandinavian press; and Marcus Moberg and Sofia Sjö explore the rela-
tionship between contemporary media and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland.
The second section focuses on the mediatization of social conflicts linked to religion.
Knut Lundby and Kjersti Thorbjørnsrud’s contribution analyses the events surrounding
the publication of a controversial caricature of the Prophet Muhammad in Norway,
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Short reviews 215
initially on the Facebook page of the Norwegian Security Police Service and then in the
mainstream news media. Johanna Sumiala turns her attention to two recent school shoot-
ings in Finland and examines the ensuing ritualization of death through the media.
The third section tackles the role of the media in the construction of Islamic identities.
Mia Lövheim examines the activities of female Muslim bloggers in three Scandinavian
countries, demonstrating how the new media equip young Muslim women with opportu-
nities for authoritative interventions in public debates about Islam. In contrast, Ehab
Galal’s chapter discusses the formation of religious identities among Muslims in relation
to satellite television.
The final section turns to the relationship between religion and popular media culture.
Line Nybro Petersen analyses audience responses to the Twilight Saga book and movie
series among Danish teenage girls, and uses the case study to elucidate the role of the media
in promoting public engagement with religion among secular audiences. Liv Ingeborg Lied
similarly uses her empirical research on religion and popular culture in Norway to develop
more general arguments on the topic, drawing on the concept of mediatization.
The key strength of Hjarvard and Lövheim’s volume lies in the wide range of inform-
ative empirical studies, which provide a useful overview of recent developments in
‘mediatized religion’ in the Nordic context. As the editors point out in their introduction,
the social, political and media systems of Nordic countries share a number of general
traits – for instance, a high level of secularization and a strong public media sector – that
have a powerful impact on the relationship between religion and the media and set them
aside from their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. Due to this, the case studies presented
in the book offer a contrast to forms of mediatized religion in other regional contexts, and
can therefore serve as a basis for wider transnational comparisons.
Hartmut Wessler and Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz (eds), Grenzüberschreitende

Medienkommunikation, Sonderband Nr. 2 Medien und Kommunikationswissenschaft, Nomos
Verlag: Baden-Baden, 2012; 211 pp.: €39.00
Increasingly, media communications cross national and cultural borders challenging

assumptions about nation-states, national public spheres and national identities as pre-
dominant categories for framing analysis. This edited collection reflects the increasing
importance of this field in media and communication studies and the very significant,
heterogeneous contributions that German scholars are making theoretically, methodo-
logically and empirically to the study of transnational communications. As the editors
claim, work in this field in Germany has thankfully and decisively rejected both the
conservatism of nationally bounded analysis and the euphoria that often comes with a
simplistic understanding of globalization to produce conceptually nuanced and empiri-
cally informed analysis of inter- and transcultural communication.
There are four elements to the growth of the analysis of transnational and transcultural
communication:
1. The extension of comparison between national media systems and the transna-
tional causes of systemic change. Noteworthy here are studies of: comparative
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214

European Journal of Communication 28(2)

A particularly valuable feature of this book is the inclusion of testimonials written by

Downloaded from ejc.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on April 27, 2015

Hartmut Wessler and Stefanie Averbeck-Lietz (eds), Grenzüberschreitende

Increasingly, media communications cross national and cultural borders challenging

Downloaded from ejc.sagepub.com at RYERSON UNIV on April 27, 2015

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